I wanted to get a few older outings out of the way before I start on Budapest so I decided to cheat and do a compilation post on everything.
My bestie Amy Ray Ray (Hi, Bestie!!!!) bought me tickets to visit Buckingham Palace for my birthday this year. It was only valid during the months when the Queen was away on her summer vacation and I didn't want to go while the Olympic madness was going on so I had been delaying it until the last minute. Literally, it turned out.
I decided to go on the third last weekend but when I got there, the attendant told me I did not have the right documentation. It turned out that Ray Ray didn't give me the right page, i.e. the page with the checkout details. I guess she was trying to be polite and not let me see the price. So I turned around and left, kinda having given up after battling the crowd to get to the ticket area. I stupidly went at 11 am, i.e. changing of the guard time. It was seriously people mountain people sea. I was off to Paris the next weekend so I could try again on the very last weekend.
Lucky they turned me away because it turned out that Ray Ray bought me TWO tickets. Apparently she didn't have the heart to let me wander around B Palace by myself like a loser. Heh... anyway Damon got to come along for the ride. We were slackasses and delayed it till the last possible minute to go... I was secretly reluctant to go because of the inevitable crowd but the inner-kiasuness in me kicked in and said I had to go or Ray Ray might as well had flushed the 36 quid down the toilet.
No photos were allowed as it is a working palace. Fair enough. It is the Jubilee year so there was also a special diamond exhibition on display. The queue to go past each diamond slowly was ridiculous so we opted to speed walk past the queue. *yawn*.We saw a few different rooms - Blue room, Green room, White room, bla bla bla. It was pretty boring to be honest. I was just hanging out for the food at the end of the tour.
Yay overpriced touristy lacklustre food.
Only picture I was allowed to take of the palace... meh.
My mate, B visited me in October and we went to a few shows - Jersey Boys and Top Hat. We also did a chocolate walking tour around Soho. Our guide was like a real life Wally from Where's Wally.
I got bored after taking two photos. Suffice to say we went to quite a few chocolate places and I bought some interesting chocolates - Tom Yum, Bakewell Tart, Miso Soup and Peanut Butter & Jelly.
October also saw me ducking off to Paris for the day with my 2 girl mates. Stacey was only in London for a week and demanded to go to Paris to visit her usual haunts. So off we went!
The one touristy thing we did that day was going up Eiffel Towel. It was a cold and miserable day so there wasn't much of a queue.
Can you spot the Arc du Triomphe?
Two things surprised me at the top of the tower...
1. There was a cheesey wax exhibition ... you would think chic Parisians would be above this kind of nonsense.
2. Not really a surprise but there was a teeny tiny champagne bar on the viewing platform. It was a tad too cold and windy for that.
We did some shopping and then headed off to one of Stacey's favourite Spanish restaurant for lunch.
She said the duck was amazing so that was what we all ordered.... and it really was amazing! I ate everything.... woops.
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